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No, not a journey of a year. This card was made in October 2014, and has stayed put since, ever waiting for that day to be posted. Should I rename the post to: Waiting for departure?

This is the card, made with the Sizzix die “Valise” and a Quietfire Design text stamp.

And inside is a Chocolate Baroque text stamp.

I made the card with someone in mind who has a lot of luggage that needs to be shed, but decided it was not up to me to give the message. One must start the journey themselves, I cannot start it for them. So this card is still waiting for the right person. Maybe I should give it in to “Lost and Found”?

I wanted to use it as it was there, with the distressed edges. But it wasn’t right.

Nicely framed with grey and straight lines is better, more view onto a scene like this.

Also here, I’ve been doubting about a sentiment, or something else. The card makes me feel a bit.. what is the word… melancholic inside, a memory with a touch of sadness. I prefer to make happy cards, not melancholic ones, as I want people to be a bit happier when they receive a card. But maybe it doesn’t have this effect on others, so it’s good like this. Thanks for visiting again! Let’s see if I can make the 3rd post in time as well.

Here are two completed ones: (Yup, one is only mounted on the cardstock, it didn’t need anything else).

Added bright paper pen to the orange, and added more white highlights as the colours were too dull. Also added some moss green paper pen on the hill. Made with alcohol inks on the background, and distress markers, paper pen and whie gelpen on the foreground.

Made with distress markers and a bit of glittery whit acryllic paint for the moon.

The first one (with the orange sky) is my entry for the Chocolate Baroque Colour Challenge #12. Although the second card turned out ok too, I still prefer the warm colours of the orange sky despite the not perfect stamping. I don’t use glossy cardstock often. Or rather, I hardly use it. I thought it was time I tackled it, as stamping on it is more slippery, and colouring it is different. So I’m a beginner all over when it comes to glossy paper!

Like this:

A birthday card for an 11 year old boy – what to make? Chocolate Baroque has stamps for that occasion as well, the steampunk sea set is very suitable for boys (of any age).

A few posts ago I wrote about the technique with kitchen foil, paint and spray, and at that time I made also a blue background with this technique, as you can see here. I didn’t put two pieces of cardstock together for this one though.

The colours were chosen from the Chocolate Baroque colour challenge #9. This is my first entry for the challenge. (Yup, the ocotopus is going to be another one but that one isn’t ready yet and I might have ruined the scene a bit. I think it looks good the way it is here, not sure if what I did was an improvement. Ah well, not this post.

All colours are incorporated in the background. The fishes are mostly pearly lila colour, together with some watery blue.

Some more blue in the seahorse, and bundled sage on the letters. Somehow Shaded Lilac and Milled Lavender are difficult for me to recognize, I keep picking the wrong one, they seem to be the same but when I look at the ink lids they are quite different. I think I did use shaded lilac on the letters though. First letter is a steampunk stamp set from Vivalasvegastamps, the other letters and banner are sizzix thinlits dies (tattered banners and some medieval alphabet I think).

I have discovered a challengeblog of a shop I quite like, as they have so many different stamps!

It’s De-Stempelwinkel. So I had to participate in their challenge #7, which is ALL THINGS EASTER/SPRING/YELLOW’. (I’m following the blog via RSS feed as I can’t follow via blogger and don’t use a google account).

So I got out two stamps from them, and started crafting. (Although I realized later the reading girl is from VivaLasVegas I think, not from De-Stempelwinkel.

Above is the finished card, picture taken in the evening. The other pictures were taken during the day outside, see the fresh colours? The tree is from De-Stempelwinkel, and the green grasses is from the stame plate, it are branches of a willow, stamped upside down. The VLVS reading girl is a very nice image but the quality of the stamp is not very good, the rubber is so thin I can almost see through it, hence also the inkspots around her, it’s difficult stamping.

The tree plate is very nice, also includes tree stumps and broken branches. Lovely to build a scene with 🙂

Like this:

So all past personal happenings in the previous post, now onto the present ponderings.

How much freedom has a heart? Is a heart free to choose whom it loves, and who can enchant it? Hmm the latter says no, enchant a heart, steal a heart: it doesn’t suggest free will is involved. Love is a strong force, and has a mind of it’s own, bigger then one heart.

Birds are associated with freedom. Freedom of the skies. I think I’ve allready mentioned I don’t like birds in cages, taking away the pleasure of soaring on the wind. Like taking away the ability to skip, dance, run of people. Or rather, the ability to walk for more then a few steps and having to do all else skiping maybe? Like leopards in captivity, lions, wolves… sure, sometimes they get bigger retreats. But can they run in there? Like they run in the wild – for hours in a row, miles passing beneath their feet. (yeah I know, they probably don’t run for hours in the wild, only when hunting, but still, you get my point). (I’m digressing again.)(And no, I’m not a fanatic animal rights activist even if I might sound like one, it’s just that I somethings think a bit more about things that seem “normal” and then realize they aren’t that normal at all).

Anyway, birds = freedom, hearts = no freedom. Birds (lovebirds) are involved in love. Why? The mystery of something untangible? Head in the clouds? Heights? Love flying away with you?

All this pondering just to get to my next card for the Designs by Ryn April challenge, where I felt that the heart and dove silhouette should find eachother:

Two post ago I explaind how I made the backgrounds.

Here is the shinieness very visible:

It was hard to stamp at times due to the shinyness :P. Stamped the large silhouette birds in black stazon, the smaller flock in cherry pink stazon (didn’t think I’d use that again). Coloured 2 chaines of the heart with the white gelpen, and added some acryllic paint to the lighbulbs and the fitting.

Here you can see that the fairy and heart card have a simlar background, as they were made together.

Last but not least, I added some old rose acryllic paint to the edges. Usually I choose a darker colour, but I wanted to try a lighter colour now. I like how it looks like a sky scene, like it’s surrounded in clouds, a very dreamy effect. I was thinking of adding something more, like a sentiment, but I think it’s good like it is, so I matted it onto a white card.

There is one other card I made a few weeks ago with designs by ryn stamps, but is so doesn’t fit in this series of images. Hmm. I’ll post the chocolate baroque card first then, maybe that will soften the “change”.

Like this:

I was running late for another entry for Designs by Ryn for the March challenge, so I decided to post this for the April challenge instead. And what a coincidence: the main stamp I used is on sale now! And one that I don’t have is on sale as well, so I think I’m going to order that one as a birthday present (ok my birthday has allready passed, and I got myself plenty of hobby-gifts, but hey, one more stamp…or a stamp and stencil…or two…)

How I made this card

Start by gathering pink/lila coloured paints. I don’t really like pink, but I think in a moment of sanity loss I had ordered some pink paint. So I decided to make a very pink card.
Also, I had bought the Winter sheet, to which I’ll refer to as the Celtic sheet from now on – it removes some mental limits to its use. Pink isn’t really a winter colour, so perfect for this stampset (to show that it’s also nice on non-winter cards).

Pour drops of it onto glossy or very smooth A6 cardstock, and press another piece of cardstock on top of it. Wiggle it around a bit, pull apart, turn one cardstock, put togehter again, pull apart, etc. Divide the paint with the papers so the entire surface (or almost all of it) is covered.

Then, spray with glimmer mist (or water, but a tutorial I once saw they used the glimmer mist because of a special reason I forgot). I had also used perlescent paint by the way.

After wetting it, wrap it in kitchenfoil. Wrinkle it and let dry.

Meanwhile, clean your dining table on which you sprayed perfect pearls mist because you managed to leave only 2 small A6 sized spots open to craft on on the edge of your craftsheet.

Ofcourse I have not taken a picture of the results at this point. Wouldn’t want you to spoil the surprise for you, just try for yourself!

I did this technique also with some other colours for another challenge, these are the results near the end. 4 cards, 2 backgrounds, (actually the right paper is where I put on the remaining paint, as I hate to throw away those leftovers.) The paper on top are the colours for the Chocolate Baroque colour challenge.

On the next picture you can see the foil effect very well.

HEre too, and here you can see how shiny it is. It is very shiny. A bit too much, so I covered it with stamps and ink. (Ofcourse I wanted to try out the new celtic stamps too.) Colouring the celtic symbols was tricky – I can’t paint inside the thin lines and making everything white is a bit boring. To bring out the figures more I added the blue.

I chose for white embossing this time, as it fit the celtic symbols. Gave the fairy a bronze colour and blue hair, blue and red dress and green/brown leaves/feathers. Some bronze/brown in the wings and harp, and accented the eyes.

I like the shiny bit above her head, like the harp produces magic.

Before matting it onto a white card I lightened up the edges a bit with some lila colour.

It could be a winter card still. Or it could just be a mystic summer card. Hope you like it!

I especially left the caryons in, as she had seen another crayon art piece and had liked it a lot.

With better colours – I loved the card, was fast, quite simple but perfect.

Made back in August but didn’t take the time yet to blog about it. I still don’t have time, so I’ll just upload lots of pictures I have from it and add coments with the pictures.

The reason for this book was that my best friend got married. Her best man asked everyone to alter a book (e.g. making a simple bookcover, theme was: a dancing couple) and write something for the newlyweds in the book. (I forgot about the last part, was too focused on altering the book!). The type of book could be one you love and thought they ought to read, or an old one to be altered totally.

It was late in the evening, and I was lost. I couldn’t remember the way to the hotel. The streets seemed empty an quiet. Or not? Music… I followed it, hoping to get directions to my hotel. The music was dragging me towards it, beconing me. I turned another corner a weak light come out of a door. That was the origin of the music. I walked to the door and stood in the opening. There was a heavy aroma in the air. It was dark, not much light. There was a light moving, shining . A dancing couple – I can’t remember if there were any other people there, the dancing couple hypnotized me. They seemed oblivious of their surroundings, totally immersed into eachother. The red rose in the hair of the lady, the red dress, the stare of the man.. I don’t remember how long I stood there in the dark untill someone offered me a drink. He guessed I was a stranger here by the way I had been staring at the dancers. I felt a bit embarressed, and said I had never seen people dance like this before. This intimate, close, passionate. What dance is this, I asked.

This, the man said, is the Tango.

First parly some gesso, then the stencils with brown paint. Als used distress ink here.

using ink through the stencil, modelling past on top of that, and paint again on top of that for a deep red colour.

Trying to figure which tango couple I would use. My friend and her parnter were on tango lessons together.

this way

or mirrored? I drew the outline o f the couple with a marker

and coloured it in, making it a black silhouette with only the red accentcolour of the woman’s dress. I made the background more blue.

It’s still quite bright. I wanted it to be darker, like the heavy, intense emotions of the tango. Dark, with only them in the spotlight.

Added a heart around them with the help of a self made stencil, modelling paste and paint.

colourd it in a lot more but didn’t like how it looked with the red dress so I added gesso on it again.

Getting the glue gun ready for some…

Melted crayon art! The heart was supposed to be on top of them and keeping them try.

my setup.

working outside – how I love my garden! A year before we only had our small appartment with a small balcony.

Hmm.

Maybe it looks better from a distance.

hmmm/

eeps, I don’t like it this way!

scraped lots off.

used another stencil and added pan pastel black with glitters to it.

Made it darker, coloured the heart a golden colour, added some pan pastel glimmering black to the couple. Now it looks more like a dark café, that goes better with the tango than bright light colours.

This looks more like an evening dancing scene, heavy scents, passion, mystery and love.

The book to be used. Fashionable sewing and cutting. (the word naaien has a double meaning, it means sewing but it also means screwing….That together with the other text: creative occupations for the woman – a little joke 😉

added words – Love

Added a little gold paint to the dots. Also I gave the cover a look like that of an old goldenlike frame.

The couple

I thought it would be a piece of cake to cut out the cover and pages – was I wrong! Next time I’ll leave the cover in place and only cut out pages.

I especially left the caryons in, as she had seen another crayon art piece and had liked it a lot.

Most pictures of the book were taken late in the evening. (Yes, wedding was next day and I had only just finished…)

I almost forgot – a card! So I made this one fairly quickly

Some nonchalant colouring with distress ink and a waterbrush. Used a stencil for the background.

With better colours – I loved the card, was fast, quite simple but perfect.

First the scans, as the colours are better looking on them.The first is a bird in on the ground in a cornfield, made with stencils from TCW and stamps from Chocolate Baroque and 1 Dutch text clearstamp: “zomaar” meaning: without reason, literally translated. A card wihgoout a specific purpose, not for a birthday, but just because it can.

The card is made for the Chocolate Baroque Colour Challlenge 7

I read the colours as:

Chocolate brown

brick red

olive green

cream/beige/straw yellow.

With this in mind I browsed through my collection of stamps.

Isn’t a brewster perfect for these colours? Brown and red, with corn and straw colours on the ground, green in the back. For the green background I also used a Chocolate Baroque stamp, or several actually. I konw you can hardly see it but the green was a bit too harsh green.

The other one is a bit darker, but with the same colours. Mixing the brown and read a bit more on the gear.

This card is a bit plain, it lacks something. A little bit of glossy accents on the eyes maybe, or (I notice now) metal colourd screws.

A little sneak peak also on birdcard number 3 – with the fired brick colour in mind I ofcourse had to use bricks as well!

Like this:

December has been very busy, probably for many of us. Hardly enough time to make all the cards which leaves no time to blog and read blogs. So I’ve got tons of cards still to show. Don’t worry, I won’t post them all individually, I’ll post them in groups.

The dragon is from the set: Here be dragons. Unfortunately the white embossingpowder was too thick for the text, and the white gellpen has got a heavy flow. But I do like how the dragon turned out a lot, I like the colous of the wings. The text says: Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

The background is from a sheet of which the previous card was made as well. The yellow looks less yellow in real life (I think it might be the lamplight) or the printed colourchallenge looks more yellow in real life – the difference between the challenge colours and my card colour (the olive/light green or greenish yellow).

I stamped the dragon, coloured with distress inks, added some purple glitter and highlights. Stamped the dragon breath in green and turqoise (the swirls are also from that set, as is the text).

I made backframes for the card and added some bister to the frames as well, as if the dragon is spewing his fire even outside the middle frame.

The colouring of the dragon-likes is fun and quick with the distress inks and a waterbrush. My next card focuses on a waterdragon, they just go very well with bister it seems!

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Hello, welcome to my blog! I am...
Debbie (nickname Daqa); the partner of a wonderful man; mother of 3 kids (2011, 2013, 2014); sister; aunt; Dutch; dog and cat lover; gamer (or should I say geek?); IT-consultant living in Bunde, Zuid-Limburg, The Netherlands. I love to try out different crafts, but mostly, I like to make paper things.

My blog is about crafting, and my life and things I find interesting. (pictures I've taken, events in my life and things or ideas I find worth thinking about). I hope you enjoy reading my blog! Still want to know more about me and my blog? Click the image!

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